


Human Warmth

by TheAsexualofSpades



Series: Quarantine Drabbles [10]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Mako Mori, Asexual Newton Geiszler, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Touch-Starved Mako Mori, all of them - Freeform, found family is my shit, i guess??? the angst really isn't that bad, the drift is not inherently romantic and i will die on this hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAsexualofSpades/pseuds/TheAsexualofSpades
Summary: Mako is not a hugger. She is here to train, to work, and to develop her skills to fight in a war bigger than any one person, any one country.She is human. Humans aren't built to run solitary. She builds her own scaffolding.
Relationships: Chuck Hansen & Hercules Hansen, Mako Mori & Stacker Pentecost, Newton Geiszler & Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori
Series: Quarantine Drabbles [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677655
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Human Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> 'Hug your friends challenge' please. Also please give me more platonic affection???? it's the shit???

Fandom: Pacific Rim

Prompt: “You’re comfy.”

* * *

Marshall Stacker Pentecost is not a very physically affectionate man.

This does not surprise most people who have met—or even heard—of the PPDC commander; his duty is his life, trying to save the world with the Jaeger program does not leave much room for softer acts, let alone regular things like hugs. Mako does not mind, she herself is not prone to hugs. She prefers the structure Marshall provides in her life, the strength he helps her imbue within her own body. She knows she can count on him to support her, as a warrior and as the closest thing the other has to family.

This need not include hugs.

Mako is not too proud to admit the first time someone tried to hug her after Marshall took her in she recoiled, not knowing what to expect from the stranger reaching their arms toward her. Marshal stepped between them, shielding Mako and barking at the offender. He explained later, more gently, that often when other people see someone they want to hug them. She nodded, still a little confused, but reassured that they meant her no harm. She learned how to tense her shoulders into sharp edges, lean away, and shake her head with a polite smile on her face ‘no thank you’ when someone offered her a hug. Warm nods of respect or affection sufficed. Even the occasional handshake.

Mako is a warrior, but she is still human.

Even the most hardened warrior will melt at the right stimulus.

“Max! Get back here!”

“Sensei, is…is that a dog?” Mako’s eyes widen at the little creature bounding across the floor, ears flopping and grunting as it bounds forward.

“Yes, Mako, a bulldog. It is friendly and it will not hurt you.” Marshall looks down, gaze softening a small bit. “I think its name is Max.”

“Aye, that’s the name,” the older man says, nearing the pair of them. Hercules Hansen, another pilot. “Got ‘im for my own boy. Hey, Chuck! Get over here!”

“Coming!”

Another boy, floppy blond hair smacking his forehead at every step, races over, tracing the dog’s steps. He falls to his knees next to the dog, wrapping his arms around the chubby creature and holding him close.

“Sorry, I dropped the leash.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Max followed me.” Hansen looks between Max and a still mesmerized Mako. “Would you like to pet him?”

“M-me?”

“Yes, you,” Hansen repeats, crouching down. “He won’t bite you. Just reach your hand out, let him smell you. Then you can pet him.”

She does as bid, letting Max snuffle at her hand for a moment. His fur is soft, warm, a little coarse against her palm but not too bad.

“There you go,” Hansen murmurs, “I think he likes you.”

“Whoa!”

Chuck loses his grip when the dog shoots forward, running right up to little Mako and planting his big furry butt right in front of her, stubby tail wagging furiously. Startled at first by the dog’s movement, Mako hesitantly starts petting him again only to yelp in joy when Max’s rough tongue laves up the side of her cheek.

“Yeah,” Hansen laughs, getting back up, “he definitely likes you.”

For the first time in a long time, Mako throws her arms around the dog and gives it a warm hug. Max snuffles contentedly, tail thumping enthusiastically on the ground.

* * *

Newt is the first person she meets who seems to have no regard for personal space.

He claps a hand on everyone’s shoulder, pats their arms, slings his own over their shoulders. He even does it to Marshall, despite the death glare he receives. His touches are not intentionally malevolent, nor are they harmful. At this point, she has learned there is another reason to initiate contact, a sexual reason. That one she definitely does not understand, but she knows enough to know this is not that either. They are just…touches.

Mako is wary when Newt first begins to touch her, laying a hand on her shoulder or knocking her arm with an elbow. He is not trying to hurt her, nor is he indicating that she should move. There is no apparent point to the contact but it persists. It is not uncomfortable but she is not used to it. The places where he touches her feel warm even after he has moved away.

“Why do you do that,” she asks one day after he nonchalantly knocks his hip against hers, “am I in your way?”

“Do what? You’re good, don’t worry.” Newt gives her a confused look and moves away, back to his mess of a desk.

“You bumped into me.”

“Oh, that.” Newt pushes his glasses up his face. “Nah, didn’t mean anything. I’m just like that.”

“I have noticed. What is the point?”

“Of me being like that?”

“Why do you initiate physical contact so casually?”

“‘Cause it’s good for me.”

Mako frowns. “I do not understand.”

Newt pauses, hands in the midst of flying through several textbooks at once. Then he comes back around to the side of the text where Mako is.

“Humans are herd animals. We’re hardwired for it, biologically speaking. Holding each other at arm’s length forever is really bad for us.” He gestures between them. “From an evolutionary perspective we’re super social, so we need a certain amount of physical contact to keep our brains healthy.”

“How?”

“Well, babies can and will die if they aren’t touched enough. Stimulation is real important for a lot of important hormones to develop so that they can grow properly. That extends to adulthood too, hugs reduce blood pressure, and prolonged hugs—what we in the biz call ‘cuddling’—“ Mako snorts—“releases oxytocin which is one of the big happy chemicals.”

Mako thinks. Physical contact can do all those things? Has she been neglecting her own physical needs? If she performs these things, will she improve?

“Hey,” Newt calls to get her attention, “that doesn’t mean you _have_ to hug everything. Most people don’t. And if, uh, if you want me to stop touching you so much, I can.”

“No,” Mako says, still thinking, “I would…appreciate it if you didn’t.”

Newt smiles. “When was the last time someone hugged you?”

“I do not remember.”

“Yeah, Pentecost doesn’t seem like a cuddler.”

“He is not.”

Newt spreads his arms wide. “Wanna hug?”

“Sure.”

Newt is right, this feels…right. They fit together in ways Mako did not expect and it does not feel too warm, too tight, or too strange. It feels natural. Part of it, she is sure, comes from the fact that she trusts Newt. She knows Newt does not wish her harm, nor would he do anything that would make her uncomfortable.

“We must do this often,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“For science,” she hears Newt suggest jokingly.

“For science.”

* * *

Raleigh is very different from what she expects. This is not a bad thing. He is not the angry, overgrown Chuck Hansen she expected, nor is he an empty shell, reduced to the mere facts of data-points on a page. He is world-weary, yes, but he is still kind, still forgiving.

Perhaps it is their Drift Compatibility, perhaps it is his ability to read people. Regardless, he understands within a few minutes of meeting her that she prefers there to be a certain distance between them and he does not push, content to stand by her shoulder as they work. She knows he himself has no qualms about touching people, what with the enthusiastic hug he gives Tendo when she takes him to his Jaeger, so she is grateful he understands.

The first time they run a test in Gipsy is the first time she feels the raw pain of needing someone else close, someone else to help share it. She disengages from the harness and there, right behind her, is Raleigh, wrapping his arms around her through their dive suits, holding her upright against his body. Her mind clears slowly, part of it the relief of being away from the Drift, part of it the steady reassurance that her partner—her copilot—is there too, not going anywhere.

Forcing herself to leave Marshall’s office is the hardest thing she has ever faced since he took her under his wing and the first time she wished he was just the tiniest bit softer. She does not run to Newt, knowing he has his own work to take care of, and the only other person she would run to, she left in that office.

She calms herself by running drills, over and over again until her muscles ache and her chest is heavy with the knowledge that this may all be for nothing. Thanks to the Ghost Drift she can feel Raleigh nudging at her mind like a concerned puppy but she cannot let him in. She is too fragile.

It is only after she finds his conn pod floating in the water that she pushes all of that away and hugs him tightly to her chest, pleading for him to be okay. The dive-suit does not let her feel him directly and she curses, wanting nothing more than to tear it off them and feel him, still warm, against her. But that would require moving away and she cannot bear to let him go even for an instant.

“…you’re squeezing me too tight.”

She freezes at the soft whisper, pulling back to see Raleigh smiling at her, still a little woozy.

“I couldn’t breathe,” he murmurs, laughing a little when they pull each other back in, grateful to feel the other solidly, the ultimate reassurance that _they survived, they won, the war is over._

The instant the techs get them out of the dive suits the hug properly. Raleigh is much bigger than Newt and his arms encase her completely, the soft scent of snow and pine trees and something utterly _Raleigh,_ his touch like summer sun searing through the thin fabric of their dive under-suits. Newt’s hugs may feel natural, Raleigh’s hugs feel like home.

“We’re not moving anytime soon, huh,” Raleigh says, amused at how tightly they’re woven together.

“You have a problem with it?”

“Nope,” he says, scooping her up and dumping them on the nearest bed, “you’re comfy.”

“That settles it.”

If the dive techs feel a certain way about the two pilots cuddled up on the cot in their workstation, they keep it to themselves. And hey, the war is over. They will certainly have an easier time looking on the bright side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come yell at me on tumblr while we're all in quarantine. 
> 
> https://a-small-batch-of-dragons.tumblr.com/


End file.
